Soccer By Ives

Altidore and Donovan headline U.S. national team camp roster

Landon Donovan, Jozy Altidore and Brad Guzan headline the 26-man roster Bob Bradley selected for the U.S. national team's January camp.

The squad, which was announced on Monday, will begin training on January 3 at Home Depot Center in Carson, California ahead of the national team's first friendly, on Jan. 19 against Sweden.

Here is the roster:

Nowak names 24-man roster for U.S. Under-23 national team camp

European-based forwards Charlie Davies, Preston Zimmerman and Kamani Hill headline the 24-man roster chosen by U.S. Under-23 national team head coach Peter Nowak ahead of a two-week training camp in January in Bradenton, Florida. The camp is being held as part of preparations for U.S. Olympic qualifying.

Here is the roster:

European-based forwards Charlie Davies, Preston Zimmerman and Kamani Hill headline the 24-man roster chosen by U.S. Under-23 national team head coach Peter Nowak ahead of a two-week training camp in January in Bradenton, Florida. The camp is being held as part of preparations for U.S. Olympic qualifying.

Here is the roster:

Meet Fulham's new manager: Roy Hodgson

Fulham has named its permanent replacement for fired coach Lawrie Sanchez on Friday, choosing veteran manager Roy Hodgson to take over. Hodgson will be on the sidelines for Fulham's match against Birmingham.

What will this mean for the Americans? It shouldn't mean a thing for Clint Dempsey, who is a first-choice player no matter who is the coach, but it will be interesting to see what becomes of Carlos Bocanegra. The Fulham defense has been a wreck and it will be interesting to see what Hodgson does to fix the back-line.

What do you think of this hire? Do you think Dempsey and company will benefit from learning from such an experienced manager? Do you foresee an overhaul of players that could claim Bocanegra? Share your thoughts below.

Morning Ticker

Good morning everybody. Let me start by apologizing for the low number of posts recently. I can assure you that the action will pick up after New Year's Day. For now, I will try to keep you updates on the goings on in the American and international soccer world.

Before we get into the day's events, I must make another request for SBI readers to take part in the SBI reader roll call. If you haven't already taken part, please do so. Your input is going to go a long way toward helping me shape and set a direction for SBI as we head into 2008.

Secondly, I have not forgotten about the most recent Q&A session. I am working on it and am hoping to have it done for tomorrow. It will be done by Monday at the latest.

Now, onto the news. Here are some recent tidbits you may or may not have heard:

Merry Christmas from SBI (and Boxing Day TV Sked)

Good afternoon and Merry Christmas to everybody. I hope your holiday was as enjoyable as mine was (and for those of you who don't observe Christmas, I hope you enjoyed the day off.)

It is around that time when you've unwrapped all the presents, the kids have spent a little time playing with all their new toys (the ones they like anyway), and things are a little slow. It's a good time to relax, watch some TV (and take in some of the TIVO'd action from the weekend if you didn't already get around to watching all of the weekend's great games).

If you are lucky enough to also have tomorrow off then you are in for a nice mid-week treat. It is Boxing Day in England, which means a full slate of EPL matches. Fox Soccer Channel and Setanta Sports USA have us covered, showing eight different games which will give us a chance to see as many as eight Americans play. Yes, I know, I don't normally list Setanta, but I know that enough of you die-hards have already added it to your cable packages (and maybe some of you even got it for Christmas).

So, without further Freddy Adu, here is tomorrow's soccer TV schedule:

MMCB: The Christmas gift that is European Soccer

Good morning folks. I know we're short on numbers at this time of year but I figured at least a few of you are stuck working on Christmas Eve and just might be looking to talk soccer.

I will post an Americans Abroad: Weekend Rewind before noon and may have a post on the latest candidate to join the race for the Chicago Fire coaching job, so keep an eye out for those things. For now I want to talk about Sunday's amazing slate of European games and what it means on the grander scale.

SBI European Club Top 25

Good afternoon folks. It is the Friday before Christmas and I know most of the regulars are hitting the stores or are stuck in traffic.

For those of you who happen to be in front of a computer, here are this week's European Club Top 25. Not a lot of change at the top, but that may not be the case next week after some very high-profile matches this week. Inter Milan faces AC Milan and Real Madrid plays Barcelona. You can't get much better than that.

There was some considerable shuffling near the bottom of the rankings, including the continued rise of AC Milan and Everton.

Here it is, the SBI European Club Top 25:

MLS Rules Changes: A closer look

Guten Morgen everybody. There is plenty to get to on the American soccer news front this morning. The Juan Carlos Osorio press conference took up most of my afternoon on Tuesday and therefore kept me from blogging on two other newsworthy developments.

I will get to the U.S. Under-23 team's Olympic qualifying draw later this morning but for right now I wanted to talk about Major League Soccer's announcement of changes to its roster guidelines. For those of you who missed it, MLS revealed that it has changed the number of international players team can have. Now, instead of being limited to four senior international players, MLS teams will start out with as many as eight slots that can be used on international players, a number that teams can increase via trade.

Yes, you read that right. Not only can teams have up to eight foreign players, they can trade for other team's foreign slots. So in theory, a team could field a starting 11 made up entirely of foreign players. A scary thought? Not really. It is actually a necessary evil brought on by the league's rapid expansion.

Your Questions Answered (The Rest)

Dobroye utro everybody. I finally made some time to finish off the rest of the most recent Q&A session. There were some tough questions, and some familiar ones. I was impressed to see so many questions and not have any of them be about the Red Bulls stadium or John O'Brien.

Now, without further delay, here are (the rest of) your questions answered:

MIKE- Ives, how can the US "fire" John Hackworth from the U-17 team only to give him a job on Bob Bradley's staff? I can't see how recycling the same coaches brings progress for the USMNT at any level.

IVES- Mike, the two jobs are very different, as were the men who made the decisions on Hackworth. Sunil Gulati felt it was time for a change at the top of the U-17 program, which is fair considering the team didn't live up to expectations at the U-17 World Cup. Bob Bradley felt Hackworth brought certain things to the senior national team coaching staff that it needs. Hackworth does work well with young players and he should help with the up and coming crop of young national team talents.

Dobroye utro everybody. I finally made some time to finish off the rest of the most recent Q&A session. There were some tough questions, and some familiar ones. I was impressed to see so many questions and not have any of them be about the Red Bulls stadium or John O'Brien.

Now, without further delay, here are (the rest of) your questions answered:

MIKE- Ives, how can the US "fire" John Hackworth from the U-17 team only to give him a job on Bob Bradley's staff? I can't see how recycling the same coaches brings progress for the USMNT at any level.

IVES- Mike, the two jobs are very different, as were the men who made the decisions on Hackworth. Sunil Gulati felt it was time for a change at the top of the U-17 program, which is fair considering the team didn't live up to expectations at the U-17 World Cup. Bob Bradley felt Hackworth brought certain things to the senior national team coaching staff that it needs. Hackworth does work well with young players and he should help with the up and coming crop of young national team talents.